Even though many complain that playing a game on the iPhone’s minuscule 4-inch display is cumbersome, that doesn’t change the fact that people use the iPhone and iPod Touch for gaming quite often. That said, the fact that you can find almost every iPhone game on Android these days makes it less compelling for users to keep an iPhone just to play a specific batch of games. Apple doesn’t seem too happy with that lately, and new reports point to the company’s new strategy.

The Wall Street Journal is reporting that Apple and even Google are looking into landing some exclusive deals with game developers. In the particular case of Apple, apparently the company is not offering any extra money for the developer, but will provide better product placement on Apple’s featured section of its App Store. An example is Plants vs Zombies where the company didn’t pay EA any money, but did leave the game featured for three months while the exclusivity deal lasted.

It’s hard to tell if any future exclusivity deals will also be temporary, or if we’ll see a case of full exclusivity, which is still enticing for developers considering that iOS runs on various types of compatible devices and form factors. The same can be said of Google’s Android platform as well. Let’s just hope this doesn’t end-up affecting the market any more than carriers are doing so with smartphones lately.